Characterizations of Amazonian Woods in Relation to the Evolution of Woody Plants

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Amazonia is one of the treasures for bioresources on the earth, since the most valuable species of plants grew naturally in the Amazon river basin. However, according to a reliable data, 17,000km 2 of the Amazonian forest area continues to be lost every year by slash-and-burn agriculture and over-pasturage. Selection and breedings of useful woods which have high abilities of environmental adaptation are very important subjects for not only restoration of the lost tropical rain forest but also for utilization of woods. Creation of new value of woods would lead to a sustainable wood management of appropriate deforest and afforestation. Although plant taxonomy on Amazonian woods has been well studied, there are few comprehensive researches about xylem morphogenesis and evaluation of wood quality that are essential for wood utilization.Our purpose of this work is to investigate physicochemical properties of the cell wall, which is a critical factor affecting the wood quality, in terms of environmental adaptation and genetic taxonomy. We focus on xylem morphogenesis of woody plants ranging over Mato Grosso located in the northwest region of Brazil. The specific densities of Amazonian woods were 0.5〜1.18, which are relatively higher than that of Japanese species. The MeOH-extractives of Angelim-Vermelho and Castanha-do-Paral showed significantly high percentages. Syringyl/Guaiacyl ratios in lignin ranged from 0.6 to 1.77.